Chapter 59
SATURDAY 4:41 p.m.
Stenness Basecamp
Orkney Island, Scotland
That
cher knocked on Hummer’s door. Her hands were still trembling.
“What?” he
barked.
Great
. The man was already in a bad mood. So much for the liquor. She took a deep breath and stepped into his office.
Hummer placed a communiqué down on his desk and
nodded for her to take a seat.
She chose to stand.
“I’m requesting permission to leave—”
“Denied.” He returned to the paperwork
.
She’d expected
they could at least have a conversation. “There is a possibility I can solve this problem without resorting to AVX.”
“
I said no, Brynne.”
“There
are alternatives to destroying everything.”
“You’re not
a part of those alternatives.” Hummer looked up with piercing eyes. She was wasting his time.
“AVX fallout could be
more devastating than the graves—”
“
I make the decisions. AVX is my decision.”
“But Dr. Hyden has a—”
Hummer slammed his fist onto the desk.
Thatcher tucked a strand of hair behind her ear
. She looked at the floor to avoid his bullying glare.
“You are not authorized to leave basecamp until I direct you to do so
. Is that clear?” He rose from the chair.
Thatcher clenched her jaw.
She hated how he spoke to her. The man controlled everything. His very mood determined her future.
“Do you hear me?”
She had stopped listening. Somewhere during his lecture she had tuned him out. David needed her help. Hummer must know that. She forced her eyes to return to his. There was only the pretense in her defiance. Then, garnered from somewhere deep, she found boldness.
The predatory glint in Hummer’s eyes waned.
He sat back down.
“
Disobey me, and your career is finished.” The threat was merely an afterthought with no repercussions. He had the last word. Hummer ended things. No one else.
Thatcher’s heart beat in her ears.
What could she say?
She
left the room. The door shut behind her. Why did confrontations end with her shaking uncontrollably or crying like a woman? That was the reaction men wanted. It gave them a right to treat her that way.
She swung her fist at the wall
, denting the surface. Pain shot through her knuckles and she immediately regretted the decision. She clasped her hand.
The ol
d battle-ax won. He always won. Theirs was a family of self-control. Discipline and constraint were their watchwords. Repression, the way of life. She closed her eyes, and forced her tears into oblivion. That’s how Hummer would do it.
Their co
nversation replayed in her mind as she slowly walked toward her room.
It didn’t make sen
se. Sitting around, waiting for the end. Golke, Bailey, and Donovon’s deaths seemed so pointless. Hummer’s stubborn denial of facts was even more irrational. There were
other
alternatives.
“
You’re not a part of those alternatives
.”
Her feet froze to the floor.
He knew something.
She looked back at his door
, putting two and two together.
He knew what was going on.
It was something so devastating that he would risk the lives of millions.
She headed down
to her personal quarters with renewed urgency.
Lee passed by as s
he reached the room. “Dr. Thatcher, I need to speak with—”
She slammed her door and grabbed th
e backpack from under her cot.
It was time to leave.
Chapter 60
SATURDAY 5:17 p.m.
Near Dornie, Highlands, Scotland
David turned onto a pebble drive that twisted along the seaside cliff and then drove over a single lane bridge and onto the tiny islet of the Eilean Donan Asylum. He stopped in the gravel parking lot between buses and moving trucks—they were still in the process of leaving.
The asylum abutted the ocean. I
ts stone walls looked more ominous than the choppy sea. Spidery moss grew over the rocks and up the sides of the castle, blending with the stormy sky and creating a somber canvas of gray. The place was a fitting sanctuary for the disturbed.
He ran up the path to the entrance.
The entryway towered fifteen feet above his head. It was propped open with furniture, allowing an ocean breeze to intrude upon the dusty halls.
“K
eep the entrance clear!” a woman growled from the reception desk.
Moving men’s voices echoed along the high-reaching ceiling.
David stepped aside as they pushed carts of luggage out to the parking lot. He stopped at a desk that blocked access to the staircase winding upward into the eastern and western corridors.
The receptionist
sorted through files. Coke-bottle glasses were perched on the tip of her nose, threatening to plunge. Her hair was yanked back so tightly her hairline had started to recede. It drew up the skin along her cheekbones, pulling her lips into a scowl.
David stepped closer to the desk. “I’m looking for some—”
“Bloody hell!” she shouted at the movers behind him. “Don’t stack the boxes in the doorway! You’re worse than the nutters!” She turned to David. “What do you want?”
“I
’m from the American Embassy,” he lied. “We’re investigating a man who might be a patient here.”
“Name?”
“Azores—or something similar.”
“Your name?” She held out a clipboard. “All visitors sign in. Just because the world is going to pot, doesn’t mean my record keeping will.”
David took the clipboard. There were two names on the list. The last person’s visit was dated ten months ago. “This is a popular place,” he said.
She handed him a pen.
He hesitated, unsure of what to write. He scribbled the first name that popped into his head and handed the clipboard back to her.
“Alright,
Dr. Jones. If you want to go through our records, I’m going to need to see some identification.”
He
felt through his coat pockets. “I don’t have it with me.”
She glared at him.
“Call the Embassy in Edinburgh,” he gambled. “Agent Brimley will vouch for me.”
The receptionist
raised an unimpressed eyebrow. She studied his face like he was a criminal. He tried not to avert his eyes.
“I don’t have time for this
.” She scowled. “The computer system is down, so we’ll have to do this the old fashioned way.”
David
followed her up the stairs. “The man I’m looking for uses a pseudonym,” he said. “It usually begins with the letter ‘A’.”
They reached the top of the stairs and headed down the eastern corridor. The hallway was cluttered with
upturned bed frames.
“Wh
ere are they moving you?” he asked.
She
looked back at him with a mixture of confusion and annoyance. “Highlands and Hebrides are being evacuated to Edinburgh and Glasgow,” she answered. “They say it’s Ebola, but it’s the Hantavirus. There are more rats in this country than men. And I’d know it.”
The
y stopped beside a door marked RECORDS.
“Half our patients were transported to Glasgow yesterday, the rest are leaving tonight for Edinburgh. There’s no guarantee the man you’re looking for is even here.” She shuffled through an assortment
of keys and unlocked the door. After disappearing into the room, she returned with an armful of files. “These are current patients who have surnames beginning with the letter ‘A’.”
David flipped through the files, glancing a
t each patient’s picture. Adams was hairy and overweight. Ashton, Arnold, Andrews were all in their fifties. Asoto—Japanese, not even close. He flipped open the next folder and read the name aloud. “Asor.” He thumbed through Asor’s documents. “This one doesn’t have a picture.”
The receptionist
took the file and searched the record herself.
“Is he still here?” David asked.
“I believe so.”
“Can I see him?”
She glared at him. “If you want to meet with anyone, you’ll need to wait for scheduled visiting hours.”
“When is that?”
“6:00 p.m.”
He glanced at his watch. “That’s almost an hour from now.”
His displeasure seemed to satisfy her. “We can’t disrupt routine. The remaining patients are our most serious cases. They’re barely going to tolerate the uproar of evacuation.”
David flipped through Asor’s file once more. Most of the information was blank or whited-out. “Could his picture be in another file? There’s nothing here. I can’t affor
d to wait around and be wrong.”
She
pursed her lips. After a moment, she turned back into the records room. David could hear her struggling with a cabinet drawer. By her vulgarity, she was losing the battle.
There was a loud crash.
“Bloody hell!” she yelled.
He peeked inside.
“This place is a sodding deathtrap!” She cringed, holding her fingers.
The cabinet had tipped over
. Overturned drawers left files strewn across the floor. He picked up a handful. Some of the documents were yellow with age and dated back to the 1930s. He organized the paperwork into a square pile. If this lady had a good side, he needed to be on it.
Another folder labeled AZ
ORES in typewriter print caught his attention. It was buried within the stack in her arms.
“Can I see this
?” He pulled the file from her collection and opened the folder.
Clipped to the
cover was a black and white photo of an elderly bald man with spider web wisps of hair, identical to the unidentified man in Brenton’s Polaroid.
“This can’t be right…” he mumbled.
The date stamp on the file marked the man’s first inception to the asylum on November 10, 1931. He already looked ninety years old in the picture. “Is this some kind of mistake?”
The woman
gasped, but she wasn’t looking at the file. She back away from him. “What organization did you say you were with, Dr. Jones?”
“United Nations.”
“You said American Embassy.” Her back met the wall.
David
followed her gaze to the bloodstain on his shirt. When he bent to help her, his coat had fallen open.
The receptionist snatched the
file from his hands. She held it protectively against her chest and pushed her glasses further up on her nose. “I need you to wait here.”
He
pulled his coat closed over his clothes. “Call the Embassy. Ask for Agent Brimley.” His heart began to race.
She
slipped between him and the cabinet.
He had to d
o something. Without thinking, he reached for her. She stumbled back into the cabinet, dropping the file and squeaking in fear. The woman froze. Trapped between him and the cabinet, she eyed the door.
This was crazy.
David stopped himself. He stepped back apologetically.
She rac
ed out the doorway. “Security!”
Her heels clicked down the hallway. He could hear her stumbl
ing over the bed frames.
He
grabbed Asor’s file, and stepped out of the room in a panic.
“What are you doing out of recreation?”
David turned to see a twenty-something attendant in scrubs. It was just a kid with spikey black hair, a nose ring, and a bruise around his throat.
The orderly not
iced the records door was open. “What are you doin’ in there?” He snatched Asor’s file from David’s hands, and pushed by, peeking into the room. “Crikey, you’re gonna get it!” He tossed Asor’s file into the room. “Simmons’ll have your head. And guess who’ll have to sort this out. Me, that’s right. Get back to recreation!”
“Where’s that, mate?” David managed a terrible British accent.
“Where it always is, ‘mate’.” He pointed at a door at the opposite end of the hall. “If I ever find you down here again, I’ll kick your arse.”
David hurried down the hall.
The door opened onto a staircase. He made his way up the steps and then down another hallway. He stopped at a door marked RECREATION. He heard a commotion downstairs and stepped into the room. The door closed behind him.
Fifty or so patients roamed freely about. A few catatonic
people sat in wheelchairs around the perimeter of the room, staring out the windows along the northeastern wall.
He
scanned the room for Asor. Most of the patients were old, and many of men completely bald. Two attendants sat at a table in the back corner playing cards.
Keeping his head down, David
stayed close to the row of beds lining the wall. He spotted an old man by the windows, his back to David. His hands traced invisible shapes over the glass. Spirals that wound inward, tight at the center.
David
ducked and scooted across the room behind the man. He placed one hand on the man’s shoulder. The man looked back with a toothless smile. His eyes were white with cataracts. He curled his finger, motioning for David to lean inward. He moved his lips but no sound came out.
“I ca
n’t hear you,” David whispered.
The man tried again, still
with no voice. He was mouthing “Asor”. He pointed down to the end of the room.
Two familiar black eyes
stared back at him.
The man from
Brenton’s Polaroid stood in the shadows. Daylight failed to brighten his corner of the room. Gloom stretched out like a black cloud of tangible desolation. His darkness blotted out the sun. His shadow, as if alive, elongated across the length of the floor. The chill crawled up David’s spine, an eclipse permeated his mind.
There was a scream—a
horrifying scream. The cry he heard at Stenness and buried in the recesses of his mind. He could not stop it. He could only listen.
The noise
separated from his mind. Suddenly displaced, it spread across the room.
In the blink of a
n eye, Asor was at David’s side. He grabbed David’s arm and dug his fingernails into his flesh.
“
Tsaw-lakh’ saw-ar’ paw-rawsh
!”
The old man lurched forward. His eyes rolled
back into his head.
One by one, the
patients in the room faced them. The catatonic came alive.
The
y joined Asor’s whisper, rolling their tongues as if the strange vernacular was their own. “
Tsaw-lakh’ saw-ar’ paw-rawsh
!”
Se
curity guards stormed the room.
There were no other exits.
The men stopped at the door as the clamor grew louder.
Discord echoed off the walls in a confusion of noise.
David could hear the screams of Stenness. He grabbed his ears. The room began to spin. Images flashed into his mind: Brenton’s corpse, Thatcher lifeless—everything that mattered destroyed. The walls of the asylum began to vibrate. With a terrible crash, the windows burst outward. The floor splintered, and a crack spread down the center of the room. The guards fell aside as the floor split between them.
Aso
r pulled David out of the room.